southern tech 100 roundtable 17


sense of humour loss if they discover their information has been passed on without their knowledge.”


Keeping Big Data processing within the legal framework was a current business challenge set to get tougher with tighter legislation likely to be enacted in 2-3 years. “There is already a strong perception from the regulatory authorities that business organisations are generally too cavalier with people’s information and privacy.”


The paradox said Murray was that people wanted privacy in some areas, yet freely provided content for their Facebook and LinkedIn pages or openly corresponded via social media.


Wassall: “You can say that individuals are not helping themselves, but that does not matter because we all still have to operate within the legal framework.


“I’m sure businesses are not deliberately doing things illegally. They are just not thinking about this issue enough.”


Taylor reassured the Roundtable that the legal aspects of Big Data usage and data protection were firmly on the agendas of major organisations with which his company was involved.


Some people were wary of Big Data development, but he hoped that mining the data would not become the equivalent of fracking in the energy world, because the business world needed “the benefits, the energy that it can provide.”


Taylor saw two strands of Big Data future development:


• usage of Big Data for permitted use by owner opt-in.


• use of anonymised Big Data for market profiling.


White agreed there was a parallel with other forms of IP capture, for example identifying patentable inventions within a business. For an invention to be patentable, it cannot be disclosed publicly before filing the patent application. Organisations often require confidential information to create value or profit. Systems need to be put in place not only to identify valuable data, but to ensure that anyone coming into contact with confidential information knows what they can and cannot do with it.


Wassall noted that anonymised data, being non-personalised, was not covered by data protection legislation.


Hembrow felt most people would accept Big Data processing if it wasn’t intrusive in their lives.


Cyber security moves to the top of the agenda


Within days of this Roundtable, the cyber- hacking of customer data held by TalkTalk was in the news headlines. Surely the


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 15/JANUARY 16 Robert Wassall


achievement of cyber security was now prominent on all boardroom agendas – or was it?


Murray revealed that the inclusion of cyber cases within UK crime statistics for the first time had resulted in 2.5 million cyber cases being recorded last year. “They were the only reason crime figures had gone up.”


Walker added that in the past three to six months the amount of cyber security requests from businesses in general had grown 10-fold at least. “That is partly because the cyber security profile has been raised in all forms of media, and it’s also because people have experienced attempted hacks and also seen others hacked.”


He exampled one instance where a company CFO was emailed by his CEO to transfer more than £10,000 to a named account. Fortunately the CFO was wary, and, since he sat opposite the CEO, was quickly able to check the email authenticity – which was a fraud. “That’s just one example of many we’ve heard of over the past few months.”


There had been reports by a blue-chip global network provider of 80 billion hacking attempts per day to global network providers, said Walker. “That may only scratch the surface of the technology issues around cyber security.”


While his company provided cyber-system penetration testing services, it was also necessary to check the vulnerability of the working environment, and staff procedures such as taking phone calls from alleged ‘head office colleagues’, ‘customers’ or ‘officials’.


“That question ‘What are my staff going to do in certain situations?’ is often not asked or its significance under-estimated by businesses.


“Many SMEs don’t have a set IT security policy or disaster recovery procedure, and if they do it will probably be weak because it hasn’t been looked at for some time.”


Greater staff education of company policy and procedures was needed to help mitigate the cyber crime risk, he stressed. Basic IT ‘house-keeping’ such as changing passwords, having a Bring Your Own device (BYOD) and data usage policy, could be


Daniel Henwood


really helpful in preventing data loss, or being held hostage to someone hacking your data.


Abuse of email addresses can be relatively easy Walker revealed, although adoption of ISO 27001 principles and procedures, covering IT service management systems, could significantly reduce such a risk.


Cyber security in general was becoming a ‘keeping people awake at night’ issue, Taylor admitted. “Frankly, if somebody is determined enough, then there is a high security risk. If it can happen to Sony ...”


The balance between IT security and workforce remote connectivity, BYOD usage and operational flexibility was a modern workstyle challenge. The focus of security should be on data breach, anything monetary, and company IP, he advised.


“There is a lot of work being done on IT weakspots but unfortunately security gets in the way of convenience, and that’s why we slip occasionally and hear another horror story.”


Walker explained that while many IT service providers were ISO 27001 certified, it would be a tough standard for the average business to achieve. “But, it will change. There will be more focus on businesses getting it because there will be well publicised cyber crime stories of financial or reputational impacts, which can ultimately collapse a business.”


Sharman said accredited and audited cyber security was also becoming required within supply chains. “No-one wants to be hacked through their supplier base, and the risks of contagion through the chain are too big to ignore.”


Wassall agreed, adding that proven cyber


Continued overleaf ... www.businessmag.co.uk


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